Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

by LaTasha Morrison

What is the truth? Hasn’t truth become a complicated word in these days when news is labeled “fake,” where “alternative facts” serve as the basis for a sort of virtual, choose-your-own reality?

Truth has always been evaluated from various perspectives,

The truth—historical, sociological, psychological, and spiritual—should not be up for debate, especially among Christian people.

Truth, unvarnished and unfiltered, is essential to the work of sanctification, freedom, and reconciliation.

No one tribe or group of people can adequately display the fullness of God.

This does not mean that we take a color-blind approach to community.

Paul emphasized that unity can be found in diversity.

In the love of the family of God, we must become color brave, color caring, color honoring, and not color blind.

we can’t fix what we don’t understand or acknowledge.

But despite the Bible’s recognition of differing ethnic groups, there is no indication of race. Race, as we know it, is a political and social construct created by man for the purpose of asserting power and maintaining a hierarchy.

as brothers and sisters in Christ, we must not only share our foundational memories and practices of faith but also share and understand our personal and ethnic histories.

Without understanding the truth of racial injustice, both majority-culture and non-White-culture Christians will find themselves mired in dissonant relationships. If we avoid hard truths to preserve personal comfort or to fashion a facade of peace, our division will only widen.

Jesus can make beauty from ashes, but the family of God must first see and acknowledge the ashes.

Though slavery had been outlawed, in an effort to keep the Union together at any cost, federal law often turned a blind eye to the injustices against members of the Black community. Slavery in the South took a new form, a form largely ignored by the federal government.

many former members of the slave patrol had been recruited as law-enforcement officials. They arrested Black people if they walked on the wrong side of the road or if they were deemed out of place. These arrests subjected Black people again to this new form of slavery.

Mary Turner and her unborn child were denied the right to live because she had the audacity to demand justice.

Forgiveness and healing cannot begin until we become aware of the historical roots of the problem and acknowledge the harm caused.

the soil of America is steeped in racism.

awareness lead people out of denial and ignorance, into lamentation, and ultimately into racial solidarity.

that her role wasn’t to do anything. She didn’t need to say anything or strive to find a related example. Her role was to listen and learn. By becoming aware of the realities of racial division, she could grow in empathy, and empathy is the first step toward racial solidarity. Empathy would allow her to sit in someone else’s pain.

another friend from that original group, Susan Seay. Bekah grew in awareness, and that awareness has led her in the journey toward making reconciliation a lifestyle.

Why do we sometimes try to suppress truth? What motivation might be at work when we avoid engaging with truth?

H: embarrassment fear sadness avoidance

List three historical facts related to our nation’s racial history that you learned outside school.

H: city beautiful movement, massivs resistance, the oppression and enslavement of others seen as nonwhite, especially irish and scots irish

Growing up, I felt a great divide between my mom and me. We were emotionally detached and distant.

because my dad was more verbally expressive, because he told me all the time how much he loved me, the lack of verbalization from my mom stood out even more.

Her lamentation brought Mom a new kind of freedom and peace.

That emotional disconnection between my mother and her father informed the way she parented; it led to our own disconnection. In understanding her past for the first time, I began to acknowledge the emotional difficulties in my family. I began to lament my family history.

Awareness of the truth is useless without acknowledgment of our complicity or its effects on us.

Important

We can’t shy away from the conversations just because they’re uncomfortable or awkward or unpleasant.

Instead, we have to have the hard conversations so we can move to a place of deep lament.

Lamenting something horrific that has taken place allows a deep connection to form between the person lamenting and the harm that was done, and that emotional connection is the firs...

We have to sit in the sorrow, avoid trying to fix it right away, avoid our attempts to make it all okay....

What is the purpose of lament? It allows us to connect with and grieve the reality of our sin and suffering. It draws us to repentant connection with God in that suffering.

Lament seeks God as comforter, healer, restorer, and redeemer.

Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times, author and professor Soong-Chan Rah

American culture teaches us not to sit in sadness and despair. Pretending that everything is okay, though, requires that we mask our true feelings.

Lament recognizes the truth and helps us connect with God and our neighbors. And through lament, through the night of weeping, we can experience new joy in the morning.

much of the local Black population settled into Greenwood, pushed out of Tulsa and the surrounding areas by racist municipal laws, such as prohibitions against Black people moving onto a block where at least three-fourths of the residents were non-Black. But this relocation of African Americans to Greenwood, this pooling of talent, led to a sophisticated, highly educated, and prosperous Black community.

They’d see that what was once a wealthy prospering community has never recovered and in fact now has the highest number of impoverished people in all of Tulsa. The oppression of the community created a sense of hopelessness, of lawlessness, that’s continued through the years.

The work of racial reconciliation requires us to acknowledge the harm and to lament it. Deanna is walking through this process daily, choosing to face it with bravery and honor.

Read Lamentations 3:22–23. How does God come to our rescue through mourning?

His mercies renew each day in his faithfulness.

How is reconciliation linked to acknowledgment and lament?

You cannot reconcile those issues which you do not first acknowledge and lament

What do you need to acknowledge as it relates to our racial history?

That i have been lucky, that i have been affected (eg no real black or other nonwhite friends whom i have souggt out or maintained)

What are you currently lamenting related to our racial history?

The fact that it continues. Unrecognized. Disguised. It still affects our church and our heats and missons as christians

Leader We have formed and developed church structures and denominations while excluding the voice of your global church, due to racism and racial segregation. Lord, have mercy.

Leader We cry out to you, our God and Redeemer, as the only one who can save us from ourselves. Show us our blind spots. Don’t let us hide from you in our shame and guilt. Restore us to your perfect union that can be found in Jesus Christ. Lord, show us how to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with you.

I couldn’t find any resources at the school library, so I did what any other Black student would have done: I turned to oral tradition.

I learned about Francis Scott Key, the slave owner who’d written “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I learned of the racist verse, which contains the declaration, “No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.”

why hadn’t I been taught any Black history in high school?

And in that loneliness, I felt ashamed for bringing up the idea. I felt guilty for rocking the boat.